3Qs: Marketing McNuggets

Cara Wilking says pester power marketing could unfairly induce parents to purchase unhealthy products by exploiting the vulnerabilities of children.

The Public Health Advo­cacy Insti­tute at the North­eastern Uni­ver­sity School of Law recently released the results of an analysis of state-​​by-​​state con­sumer pro­tec­tion laws that pro­hibit unfair, decep­tive or uncon­scionable sales and mar­keting of unhealthy food and bev­er­ages to chil­dren and ado­les­cents. We asked lead researcher Cara Wilking, a staff attorney for the advo­cacy insti­tute and the clin­ical instructor for the law school’s Public Health Legal Clinic, to explain the find­ings.

What is the dif­fer­ence between direct mar­keting and “pester power,” and how suc­cessful are con­sumer pro­tec­tion laws at cur­tailing these types of junk food mar­keting strate­gies? Which state best pro­tects chil­dren from unfair mar­keting of unhealthy food?In this con­text, direct mar­keting tar­gets the ulti­mate pur­chaser of the mar­keted product by using tac­tics that appeal to that pur­chaser. Direct mar­keting to an ado­les­cent, for example, might focus on fit­ting in or being cool. “Pester power” mar­keting tar­gets chil­dren with tac­tics that appeal to them — such as toy pre­miums, con­tests, games and car­toon char­ac­ters — on prod­ucts that chil­dren do not have the ability to pur­chase for them­selves. The desired effect is to gen­erate nag­ging whereby the child repet­i­tively requests a product until an adult pur­chases it. Pester power mar­keting is “indi­rect” insofar as it tar­gets someone other than the oth­er­wise dis­in­ter­ested ulti­mate pur­chaser. It is highly effec­tive; some studies sug­gest that it results in an actual pur­chase about half of the time.

State con­sumer pro­tec­tion law has been invoked in Mass­a­chu­setts to chal­lenge the use of licensed car­toon char­ac­ters to market unhealthy foods to chil­dren and, more recently, in Cal­i­fornia to chal­lenge the use of toys to market unhealthy fast food children’s meals. Our review of state con­sumer pro­tec­tion laws revealed that a number of states, including Mass­a­chu­setts, address mar­keting tac­tics that use indi­rect tac­tics to induce con­sumers to pur­chase prod­ucts they oth­er­wise would not have pur­chased. Pester power mar­keting, insofar as it unfairly induces par­ents to pur­chase unhealthy prod­ucts by exploiting the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties of chil­dren, seems to fit squarely under those laws.

What are some of the most mem­o­rable ways in which unhealthy food and bev­erage mar­keting firms entice chil­dren to pur­chase their prod­ucts?The most mem­o­rable dis­covery came from a 2005 tax court deci­sion involving fast food. In the course of the case, McDonald’s dis­closed that its Happy Meal toy and pack­aging cost (47 cents — 43 cents just for the toy) was more than its food and condi­ment cost (33 to 46 cents) for the Happy Meal com­bi­na­tions it offered at the time. That means that the ined­ible mar­keting and pack­aging mate­rials made up a higher per­centage of the cost of the Happy Meal than the food. While McDonald’s has recently announced that it will be improving the nutri­tional quality of its Happy Meals, which pre­sum­ably will increase the cost of the actual food, the cost infor­ma­tion reveals just how cru­cial mar­keting to kids has been to the McDonald’s busi­ness model.

In the study, you note that chil­dren between the ages of 4 and 12 directly influ­enced $330 bil­lion worth of pur­chases made by adults in 2004. Why should mar­keting firms be blamed for pur­chases that a parent makes on his child’s behalf?Food and bev­erage com­pa­nies engage in mar­keting to chil­dren because, as the Insti­tute of Med­i­cine con­cluded, “mar­keting works.” In response to inquiries from the Fed­eral Trade Com­mis­sion in 2008, food com­pa­nies self-​​reported that child requests to par­ents to buy a product are impor­tant in dri­ving pur­chases. We can pre­tend that com­pa­nies are simply taking a gamble by spending bil­lions of dol­lars to market foods and bev­er­ages of poor nutri­tional quality to chil­dren they know do not have the ability to pur­chase for them­selves. Or we can take them at their word and hold them respon­sible when they engage in tac­tics that run afoul of existing con­sumer pro­tec­tion laws.

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About the Writer

Jason Kornwitz, AS' 08, has called Northeastern home since 2003. In his spare time, he enjoys playing sports, watching pretentious movies, and cooking kingly breakfasts. Follow him on Twitter @jasonkornwitz.

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